Missionites need to stop littering

Every year the Mission Adopt-A-Block Society puts together two annual clean-up events to help keep our community clean and beautiful and to help our environment.

This year’s Spring Cleanup event is coming up in April and it is my job to go out into our beloved community and select the routes that our dedicated volunteers will be tackling.

Having done this before in the fall I thought I would see a similar sight; it’s always worse on main roadways and around bus stops. Then there are the many fast food containers and odd stray garbage bag that someone has put out the night before garbage day and the birds are having a feast, plus the regular vehicle debris we find at main intersections.

But this time was especially difficult for me as I realized that the number of roads that I would classify as high litter areas have increased to a point that I fear any work that our volunteers do, will go unnoticed as there are so many roads that need to be addressed.

Our volunteers can cover three to four kilometres per group, and we have eight groups in our clean-up. There are two possible solutions for this problem.

We increase the number of community members who are adopting their own roads, or people stop littering.

It can be so discouraging to watch volunteers out there picking up after other people only to go by the same route a month later or even a day later to find more litter again. When will people learn that what you throw into our environment, doesn’t just go away.

It’s amazing citizens like our Adopt-A-Block volunteers who go and pick it up and put it where it belongs. The most disappointing sight was that every entrance into Mission was heavily littered. What message are we sending to visitors when we have litter on our front door?